


From Ashes

by sheron



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Coma, F/M, Friendship, Future Fic, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, POV Jack Thompson, Post-Season/Series 02, Post-Series, Presumed Dead, Violet and Rose Roberts Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-27 20:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8416264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheron/pseuds/sheron
Summary: Jack's day goes from bad to worse as he receives news that Daniel's been injured and Peggy is missing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies for the delay on posting the next chapter of [Grace Under Pressure](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7378264), there's been a lot of real life interference and I'm only just now getting back into writing after two months. I'm working on finishing that story next.
> 
> This story has been accurately described as ~rainbows of angst~ and was written for my 'coma' hc_bingo square. Thank you to Sholio for the beta, all the remaining mistakes are my own.

 

 

Jack nearly knocked a nurse off her feet as he strode through the familiar, benignly beige hallways of the hospital. He murmured an apology but didn't pause, eyes scanning the numbers next to each door for the one he needed, his coat flaring when he turned the corner. His feet automatically came to a stop in front of Daniel's room.

"In a coma," Rose had said in her long-distance phone-call to New York, "The doctors say there's nothing more― ...he will wake up when he is ready."

Jack, wide-awake at four a.m. even though he'd only gone to bed two hours before, hadn't even had to voice his next question. _Peggy_.

"I think she is―" He heard Rose swallow, then she powered through, "Missing. Peggy is missing."

Only limited details were available. Daniel had been found outside the blast radius, face down in the mud, with a rapidly bleeding gash by his temple. No other bodies were found. The car he and Peggy had bought together once they had to ferry their baby girl places was found parked a block away. Thankfully, the child had been staying with a nanny, a former SSR employee who was willing to look after her while the investigation unfolded.

Jack got on the next plane to L.A. 

He felt himself act as he always acted, like a sane, rational person while keeping a threatening wave of terror at bay. He was good at it. He'd heard the fear in Rose's voice when she spoke of Peggy's chances of surviving that explosion and the catastrophic building collapse that followed, leaving dust and debris as far as three buildings over. Jack hadn't allowed himself to dwell on how much time was passing while he was in transit. Chances of finding a missing person diminished significantly after the first 24 hours. He got more reports once he landed, after fifteen hours and two connections: a helpful lad in a dark suit flashing SSR credentials and bringing him up to speed. There'd been no change in Daniel's condition, he was still breathing on his own but wouldn't wake up. There had been no news of Peggy. The agent delivered this news nervously, but Jack couldn't remember if he said anything in return. He heard the Agent's words wash over him and felt nothing, remembered nothing more other than he'd somehow moved from one goal to the next: a car ride through morning rush-hour traffic to the General Hospital, and then the interminable walk to the correct hospital room. 

He paused outside the shut wooden door, breathing in deeply before he let his fingers push the door, watching it swing slowly open. 

Daniel lay silent and still, with soft covers up to his chest. He was deathly pale under the fluorescent lights and with a completely authentic frailty of his appearance, impossible to fake. Somehow, a ridiculous, childish part of Jack had expected it all to be a big prank. 

Peggy had invited him to visit in last month's phone-call and Jack had been planning on it. He hadn't seen either of them for five months and it was just a matter of finding the right time, when he could leave the New York SSR to fend for itself for a while. But things always came up, Jack was always pulled from one project to the next, and he postponed it, forgot to return their calls. Maybe he hadn't wanted to come across as desperate for an invitation. There'd be time to visit them later, he thought, when he was ready. 

A stupid, prideful decision. He'd forgotten a lesson that should have been drilled into his bones: there might not be a next day.

But Daniel didn't spring up from the sickbed yelling, "Surprise!" and there was no Peggy at his bedside, looking at Jack with the satisfaction of pulling one over on him. He might never see her again.

His mind shied from that thought and he forced himself to examine Daniel more thoroughly, critically. Daniel had a bandage swathed around his forehead and Jack couldn't recall how many stitches it had taken to sew him up, although he was sure Rose had told him. He was so still. Jack couldn't hear him breathe.

For a long moment he restrained himself, watching to see if he could detect a rise and fall of Daniel's chest from where he stood, just at the entrance to the room, but whether it was because of the covers or because of how soft those breaths were, Jack saw nothing. Eventually he couldn't help moving towards the bed and lifting one hand, outer palm an inch from Daniel's slightly parted lips. He felt a thin waft of damp air against his skin, proof of life, and his legs nearly folded under him. 

Jack tugged a metal chair over to his side and sat down by the bedside, leaning on the side, rubbing his mouth with one hand that propped his chin up, thinking.

He wasn't sure how long he sat like this. Minutes? Inside his head, a whirling storm failed to materialize into any coherent plan. He was supposed to look for Peggy, wasn't he? And find those responsible? He had to look over the files of the last case Peggy and Daniel had been working on ― never mind that other agents had already gone over it with a fine-toothed comb, he knew Peggy, and _he_ knew whatever these two had going, it was unorthodox, it wasn't by the book and the official notes in the report would only reflect a part of the story. He thought he had to check if Jarvis was around, in case the man knew something, and immediately remembered seeing Stark on TV in Europe somewhere, a supermodel hanging off each arm. So Jarvis might not have been around for this, something Jack had to confirm at first opportunity. A part of him felt relief. There'd been no reported casualties ― other than Peggy, his treacherous mind supplied ― but if someone was unaccounted for, it could take weeks to sift through the remains of that building. What had Peggy and Daniel been doing out there, without any backup?

"Coffee?" a feminine voice asked from the side, making him jump. He stood up. His hand was inside his jacket to be closer to his holstered gun. "Sorry if I startled you." The blond woman in a nurse's uniform stretched out a hand with a paper cup. Dark liquid swirled within. "Would you like some coffee?" she asked, when Jack only stared at her blankly.

"Yes. Thank you." Jack suddenly remembered he hadn't eaten for some time. This had to account for the dazed run of his thoughts. He forced his other hand to relax and move away from the weapon, and took a sip from the coffee cup she handed him, feeling the strong, black coffee burn on the way down.

Her gaze slid over to the man on the bed, before she asked, "You work with Daniel at the SSR?"

Jack's gaze on her sharpened. While Daniel's position with the agency wasn't a well kept secret, he didn't expect an average hospital worker to know who lay in this bed. Not a common nurse, then. He thought to establish his right to be in this room up front.

He nodded. "Jack Thompson. New York SSR."

He left space for her to introduce herself and she responded. "Violet." Then, after a silent moment, she seemed to work up the nerve to ask. "Do you know― Did something happen to Peggy? I would have expected her to be here." Her voice was strained, with concern or some other emotion, Jack couldn't be sure.

"We don't know." He found it hard to discuss this with Daniel lying silent in the bed next to them. Could he hear them? If he knew Peggy was possibly― Jack didn't want to take away a man's reason to wake up. "I got here as fast as I could. I haven't had time to..." They were all excuses. If only Jack hadn't been stubborn about it, if he'd phoned the two of them more often, kept up with what they were doing... Peggy had started talking about corruption within the SSR again, but Jack hadn't wanted to hear it and she couldn't say more over the phone. "We'll have our best people on the case, ma'am," he resorted to the official line. Jack couldn't help thinking of all the times he'd spoken to the relatives of those killed in action, and how much this felt like that. _I regret to inform you..._.

A thought snagged in his mind. Would he have to tell Peggy's parents? It was hard to conceive of a task Jack wanted to do less, and yet who else would he allow to do it? Certainly not Daniel. If the man― _when_ the man woke, he didn't need that sad duty on his shoulders. Daniel had a young daughter to focus on. If it came to that, Peggy would want Jack to tell them in person, he suddenly thought with certainty. The knowledge was a gaping wound, a sharp ache in his chest, but he thought it only pragmatic to start thinking along those lines. To get himself ready in case the next person through the door was an SSR Agent reporting they didn't find her alive. He had to force himself to think of the eventualities. If he prepared himself now, then―.

But his thoughts froze as he tried to picture a bleak future without Peggy in it. She'd been a constant to him for years, doing what he did without her in this world felt awful, unthinkable. Even across the continent, when Jack was having a bad day he'd think: _what would Peggy do?_ And just the thought of her somehow finding out he was thinking such things was enough to spur him on to a solution.

He must have stood there numb at the idea for some time, blank in the face of Daniel's blankness, because Violet said, gently, "He'll pull through."

Her voice held such fondness, such earnest belief shining in her green eyes, focused as they were to Daniel's supine form, that Jack couldn't help glancing at her in surprise. Violet turned, sensing his gaze, and flushed at the question she read in his face, eyes lowering downward. Jack, not being an idiot, remembered Daniel talking something about a fiancée nurse he later broke things off with, and guessed this was her immediately. 

"He is too stubborn to do anything else," Jack found himself saying and watched her breathe shakily in and out. He knew he'd said the right thing. 

Maybe you didn't stop loving someone just because they were taken.

"I have to get back to work," she said, pulling up resolve from a hidden well somewhere. "I have a full shift ahead. It was nice meeting you," her mouth twisted, "a pity it wasn't under better circumstances. Will you be alright?"

Jack nodded. Of course he would.

Besides that, she was right: he had work to do.  


 

* * *

 

Jack wanted to have the official reports brought to the hospital, so he could be there if Daniel woke, but Rose had calmly ushered him out of the room, implying not in so many words that a shower would be worth-while and that she'd be keeping Daniel company. Jack, having checked into a nearby hotel and showered, was at the West Coast SSR Headquarters when the news came. Agent Martinez knocked on the door of Daniel's office, and Jack looked up from where he was pouring over the pile of the latest typed reports, to watch the white-faced young man enter.

"Sir, there's news," he said, the preamble setting Jack's teeth on edge.

Voiceless, he made a rough motion with a hand for the man to spit it out.

"They found a badly burned body at the crime scene." The man shifted from foot to foot. "It's been taken to the morgue. An SSR coroner is running tests now to see if they can identify if it's―I mean. They haven't been able to make a positive identification."

"Female?" Jack said.

Martinez hesitated a brief moment before nodding.

"I have to see the body."

"Sir..."

It wasn't the caution in the man's voice that made Jack pause. It was cold reason setting in. The local SSR Agents had canvassed the surrounding streets and found no evidence of Peggy, which meant she was either far away from the area or...caught inside the explosion. "No, I need to see the crime scene first. After. When the coroner had time to examine...it."

"Of course, sir." Martinez nodded, "I will keep you appraised, if they confirm..."

"That isn't Peggy," Jack cut in, and strode out of Daniel's office. He'd have known. If she was dead, he thought he would have known it. He couldn't even think about it properly, so there had to be something else going on.

He drove himself to the scene, feeling Martinez' understanding gaze too keenly. Once there, when the wheels of the black SSR car rolled to a stop some ways from the rubble, that's when Jack had to take another moment to compose himself.

Nobody could have survived that.

In the deepest reaches of his heart he still held on to belief, but his mind was shaken by what he saw unfolding before his eyes. Each stone, every shard of glass spoke of the power of the destruction wrought upon this place. Boulders of collapsed walls riddled the street, a tilted carcass of iron beams that used to support the building groaned in a threatening manner with every gust of wind. Rescue personnel hadn't been able to enter the site even after the fire had been put out until some support had been constructed to prevent a further collapse on top of them. In the midst of this destruction they had found a female body and Jack had to focus on simply breathing in and out for a moment, trying to push awareness away for another moment. Another.

Eventually he controlled himself again. Just in time; two uniformed fire-fighters headed in his direction, waving for him to leave the crime scene. Jack flashed them his official badge and ignored their frowns as he headed closer to the center of the devastation.

He tried to think things through methodically, checking things off in his head as he matched up the results with what he'd read in the report. 

There was where the main support beam of the wall fell down. Its brown, charred remains lay crumbled on the asphalt. The building had been used as a store front on the ground floor and an office building for the next five storeys, so much of the scene was littered with office papers and other paraphernalia lying on the asphalt, charred in the conflagration. 

He must have stood among the ashes for a good hour. 

Shaking himself out of the daze, Jack strode over to where they'd found Daniel, the light imprint of his body still on the soot-covered ground. Jack crouched, trying to see if he could recognize Peggy's lightly-heeled shoes, but the scene was covered in all sorts of footprints running back and forth, grinding any evidence into the dirt. Something glittered in the dust and Jack stretched out to reach for the glittering object in curiosity. He easily dug a small golden pin out from where it was embedded upside down in the dirt, and narrowed his eyes, bringing it up to eye-level to examine. 

At a quick glance it looked similar to the SSR emblem, an eagle in a circle with an inscription, but Jack knew it immediately for what it was from the eagle's folded wings. The symbol of Peggy's little brain child, her way of trying to protect the world from the shadows. Jack had one just like that stashed among cuff-links in his apartment in New York, Peggy had insisted he have it even if he was never formally involved. In a way, Jack thought it was a bit like getting the Arena Club invitation he'd sought once, after all.

Jack stood, and stashed the little pin ― either Daniel's, or some evidence of Peggy's presence outside the building ― into his coat's pocket. He went back to looking for anything else they might have missed. At long last, every avenue of thought exhausted, Jack nodded grimly to himself and went back to the car. It couldn't be Peggy at the morgue. The body they found had been buried under several blocks of concrete, too far inside the building to have made it out. Daniel had been found outside the explosion radius, facing away. Jack couldn't picture Daniel leaving Peggy behind, or the reverse, ergo, the burned body wasn't Peggy.

Unless she'd helped Daniel out of the building, then left him once he was out of danger and went back inside?

The seesaw of thoughts made Jack want to hit something. He pressed one white knuckled fist into the steering wheel. Why did Peggy always get into these kinds of situations? It made him angry at her, even though he knew he shouldn't be, because that was who Peggy was and half the time he admired her fearless nature even through the chaos she left in her wake. 

Jack made it to the city morgue without crashing into anyone, which was of itself an achievement. Outside the building, he itched to look behind him. He felt like Daniel should be here with him in this.

Jack walked up the stairs alone. Flashed his SSR badge at the balding man in the office.

"You have a Jane Doe from an explosion outside town?"

The man at the desk frowned at him and affixed glasses on his nose before hawing and looking down at his papers. Jack fought himself to keep still. 

"Ah, yes." He hawed again. "Unfortunately, there's been considerable damage to tissue. No fingerprints to compare to the ones Miss...Carter has on file."

"Is there enough for a visual identification?"

The coroner studied him over the top his glasses.

"There's significant burning." The coroner stressed the words, as though trying to convey something. "In these circumstances, I would advise against putting yourself through that. It would be difficult, maybe impossible to identify the deceased."

"Maybe," Jack said. "I have to see her."

As he said it, he realized that he was no longer thinking of the body as 'it'. He tried to quell the rising nausea and focused on the facts: if that was Peggy's body in there, the only way he could help her now would be to confirm that. 

After a moment, reading his resolve, the man nodded and went to the next room. 

_Can't lose it now_ , Jack thought. _I have to find out, for Daniel._

There was a sense of detachment to his thoughts as they walked through the dimly lit hallway into another room. The smell of antiseptic was overpowering. On the slab in the middle lay a shape, covered completely with a pristine white sheet. Jack felt like he could wake up any moment in his apartment back in New York, and this would all be an elaborate nightmare.

Jack turned his head to look at the body. 

The balding coroner pulled back the sheet.  


 

* * *

 

It was some time before Jack felt ready to drive.

What was it about burns that made them feel so visceral? He'd had his share of unpleasant mishaps during the War, gunpowder burns on his hands from faulty equipment and enough experience with burned bodies in the wake of Napalm bombs that could put you off steak for years. But maybe it was just that he'd been younger then, because those experiences had only left him with more resolve to fight, to beat the enemy. This time felt different. Even though he was barely thirty, Jack felt ancient by the time he came out of the building that housed the morgue. Maybe before it hadn't been personal because it wasn't about Peggy. 

The body in the morgue hadn't been anyone Jack knew, either. 

Jack could feel enormous relief at that. Although barely recognizable, the shape of the disfigured face had left Jack with an immediate instinctive reaction that the woman dead in front of him was someone of similar height but a different body-type than Peggy Carter. That was somebody else's wife, mother, friend, and Jack's relief and guilt mixed together at the elated beat his heart gave when he knew that Peggy was possibly still out there.

The relief was quick and ephemeral. The rescue effort at the explosion site continued, and Peggy could very well have still been caught under all the debris, and not been found yet. Jack put a hand into his coat's pocket, squeezing the metal pin inside, feeling its sharp edges bite into his skin with a very nearly comforting, normal pain before he released the pin and drove himself to the hospital.

Rose and Violet were seated in the metal chairs next to Daniel's bedside, talking in low voices. Rose didn't look quite as drawn and white-faced as she had when he'd last seen her, visibly cheered up by the presence of the blonde nurse. Jack hadn't realized they were friends. Rose was even smiling a little over something Violet had said when they both looked up at his entrance.

"Chief Thompson!" The smile slid off Rose's face. So the SSR grapevine worked as well as usual, she knew where he'd come from. Or maybe his clothes still stunk of formaldehyde in that place; Jack didn't think he'd ever forget the smell. Both Rose and Violet got up, eyes wide, looking askance.

Jack shook his head and saw Rose's shoulders unwind. "Unidentified female. Not Peggy," he clarified.

"Oh, thank God," Violet said. She glanced down at the man sleeping in the hospital bed and wrung her hands. It was clear there were some conflicted feelings there that Jack wasn't privy too. She had to be nearing the end of her shift, if not already done with it. She'd changed into civilian clothes already, a green dress with a geometric pattern.

Rose just closed her eyes and breathed deeply for a moment. She'd changed into a different set of clothes as well, a sweater and a purple skirt. She had a large sack slung over the shoulder, showing she intended to spend the night if necessary. Jack gave the two women privacy with the relief he knew intimately, and went to Daniel's jacket, hanging neatly on the hook by the door. 

"Have any of his effects been taken from the scene?" he asked, rifling through each of Daniel's pockets in turn.

"No, it's all here," Rose responded just as Jack pricked his finger on the pin at the bottom of the inner breast pocket of Daniel's suit. It figured the fool would carry it close to the heart. He twirled the little golden eagle with folded wings and dropped it back into Daniel's pocket. But that meant the pin that was currently in Jack's own pocket was Peggy's. She'd definitely made it out of the building. Daniel had been found unconscious outside, the back of his jacket covered in ashes and little soot marks left by the explosive force that had gone off not too far away. If Peggy had been there with him, she wouldn't have been caught in the blast. But the question of why she wasn't recovering in the next bed remained floating in the air. Leaving Daniel to recover on his own wasn't like her, even if there'd been a separate mission to pursue: Peggy was nothing if not loyal to those she loved.

He was so deeply invested into trying to imagine the turn of Peggy's thoughts after the explosion, trying to imagine what she might have done next, whom she'd had to fight, that he thought he might have imagined her voice from the hallway. But he wasn't delusional yet. Jack's head reared up from his quiet contemplation, and he looked out into the hallway.

Peggy stood in the doorway to the floor from the stairs that led outside. She wore a dark blue blouse, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and dark pants, with a thick leather belt around her waist, and she looked almost normal if one discounted the dirty state of her clothes, the mated hair, fixed in an obvious hurry, and the dark smudge on her chin that seemed like the beginning of a bruise. One of the nurses standing nearby, writing in a chart, took one look at Peggy and put a hand to her mouth, mumbling something like "gosh" and "you're okay!" before vanishing along one of the hallways to call a doctor and no doubt to spread the good word. With as many times as Peggy and Daniel ended up in the hospital between the two of them, it was a surprise they didn't have a wing named after them.

Jack, though, hadn't moved since his eyes met Peggy's across the hall. She didn't look surprised to see him, or maybe she was just plain too worn out to feel surprise. For his part, Jack wanted to rub his eyes at the vision of her, appearing like an angel out of hell, or a phoenix rising from ashes.

Suddenly, Rose pushed past him to the hallway, and the angelic vision vanished; real, live Peggy was moving forward briskly, she was flying into her arms. The two women exchanged a heartfelt embrace, Rose's chin tucked in the crook of Peggy's neck, as the taller woman bent to accommodate her. When they separated, hands still lightly resting on each other, Peggy immediately looked past Rose, with searching eyes. Jack was leaning against the doorway to Daniel's room. He had sprung forward when she'd moved along the hallway moments earlier but stilled while watching her and Rose embrace. He wanted to do something to assure himself of her presence, but instead of acting he stood rooted to the spot, transfixed by the way she looked battered and bruised, but _so alive_.

Peggy meanwhile mistook his hesitation for reserve, and her questing eyes landed past Jack on the door to Daniel's room.

"Daniel?" she said, looking back and forth between Jack and Rose, everything she felt in that one word, like a prayer.

"Yes, honey, he's right there," Rose cleared her throat and wouldn't let the emotion that made her eyes glisten affect her voice, "He's mostly alright, but he's had a nasty bump to the head."

"I know," Peggy moved past Rose towards the door, nodding quickly at Jack, their eyes meeting again ― like lightning ― "Has he been unconscious all this time?"

"The doctors say he'll wake up when he's ready," Jack said, stepping out into the hallway to let her pass. Even her hair smelled of smoke. "What happened to you?"

"I had an encounter with some gentlemen who insisted I came with them, and wouldn't take no for an answer." Peggy spoke even as she walked towards the door, gait slow as though she feared looking inside and finding something worse than what her imagination had played out for her, all this time she'd been away. "It took a while to get out of the bindings," she lifted one elegant wrist, marred with ugly red blotches from where the rope had cut into the typically pale skin, now covered in soot. "I sent the agents you had out front guarding the hospital to collect them before they regain consciousness. We'll have to question them later." That was just like Peggy, taking charge and changing the odds. Jack smiled, the relief he felt at first seeing her appear becoming more substantial. He watched Peggy from the back as she walked into Daniel's room. She was favouring her right leg slightly, and the blouse she wore was dirty and torn from the back, plastered against the damaged skin underneath. She'd need a doctor to take a look at her shortly, once the adrenaline wore off. For now though, Jack was entirely content to let her see her husband uninterrupted.

Peggy dispensed with the uncomfortable metal chair and sat right on the edge of Daniel's firm cot. She took Daniel's hand in hers, wrapping her fingers in his, fervently, until every inch of her palm was touching Daniel's skin. Her skin was blackened in places from the soot and bruises, looking darker than Daniel's. The man on the bed breathed softly in and out, the visible rise and fall of his chest reassuring. Peggy wiped the bruised, dirty fingers against the pristine covers and put her hand to Daniel's cheek, murmured his name softly.

Jack didn't believe in the supernatural and he wasn't much of a praying type either, but in that moment he might have changed his mind. When Peggy's hand touched the man's stubbled cheek, Daniel's dark eyelashes fluttered.

"Love?" Peggy said, voice eager and hopeful, the kind that Daniel had never been able to refuse, not to Jack's knowledge.

Daniel opened his eyes.

"Holy. Shit," Rose said flatly from Jack's side. He echoed the sentiment internally, even as he shot her a side-glance and watched Rose turn pink to match her red hair.

Peggy was entirely transfixed by the man before her. Daniel had no eyes for anyone but her. Jack had not doubted the reality of their love since it had gone from a silly one-sided crush back in New York office to a real relationship, but in that moment he saw two people transported, so in love the rest of the world seemed to vanish. Peggy moved forward and captured Daniel's lips with her own in a passionate kiss.

"They'll be fine." Jack's mouth quirked up with humour, watching Daniel return the lip-lock with gusto.

He felt somewhat disconnected, insubstantial ― _unnecessary_ ― as he and Rose left the two lovebirds behind, walking into the hallway. Violet was quickly heading their way, wearing a smile on her face that told him she knew of Peggy's coming already. Jack intercepted her as he sought to spare Violet the sight that would greet her on Daniel's bed.

"Peggy's fine," he said, catching her elbow. She glanced at him in startlement, attention momentarily diverted from the room, "And Daniel just woke up."

"He's awake?" Violet immediately tried to move around him, to see for herself. Jack blocked her view and when her eyes flew to his, half-way to anger, he repeated quietly, "Peggy is here and Daniel just woke up."

After a tenuous moment, all fight went out of her. She seemed to diminish and Jack let go of her elbow, knowing she understood. Violet swallowed, and after a momentary fight with herself, put on a happier expression. "I'm glad to hear that." She even smiled again, nothing like the real grin he'd seen shining on her face when she'd first walked in, but still something with a measure of happiness overpowering other, more private emotions. Jack was glad she didn't seem the weepy type because he wouldn't even begin to know how to handle it.

Rose, who had a better grasp on what to do about her friend, recovered enough to come and put an arm around Violet. "Let's go downstairs. I know _I_ need a stiff drink."

"I don't think they sell that in the cafeteria," Violet quipped, "...But I have a stash." Violet turned to Jack with an invitation, "Would you like to join us?" but it was clear that was only politeness talking. Jack demurred and the two women were on their way, hand in hand.

Jack went to sit in the chair out in the hallway, a few feet away from the door. He wasn't leaving until he saw the two of them again. Jack leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes, unbearably, unbelievably tired. He realized he hadn't slept for almost 48 hours. It was around mid-night in New York. He'd been so consumed by nightmarish visions of finding her dead that he hadn't felt hunger, still couldn't feel it even now, numb from head to toe. With his hands in his pockets, Jack's fingers found the little smooth metallic pin of Peggy's, with its sharp edges. But rather than attempt to give it away just yet he held on to it tightly, pressing it into the skin of his fingers until he felt it leave a mark.

"Jack?"

He actually jumped in his seat when he heard the call, opening his eyes to see Peggy standing there with him, in the hallway. Her lipstick was slightly smudged, but she had her happy face on, a curl of delicious satisfaction behind those brown eyes. Jack stood and was going to say something unnecessary, such as he was glad she was alright, et cetera, but the touch of her hand on his arrested him. 

Peggy wrapped her fingers around his lightly, and he couldn't have moved if he'd wanted to.

"I'm glad you came," Peggy said, voice not entirely controlled.

"Of course," Jack's voice dropped down to a croak. He cleared his throat; there was something dangerous stuck in it. A flickering wonder of a thought passed through his head: _she isn't gonna hug me, is she?_ Peggy seemed poised to do so, bright-eyed and almost rocking on her toes. Jack wasn't sure if the thought was painfully embarrassing or just painful.

He lowered his eyes to their joined hands, then frowned and turned her palm over. "You really need to get that tended to." Peggy winced, the sight of her broken skin staring up at them. Jack glanced about, but all the nurses seemed to have disappeared off their floor. Besides, there was that other matter... He glanced around Peggy into the room, saw Daniel's brown eyes light up with surprise. The other man truly hadn't even seen the rest of the people in the room when Peggy had been there. It was revolting.

Jack and Peggy moved inside, closer to Daniel's bed. Their hands fell to their sides.

"Hello there, Sleeping Beauty," Jack crowed.

Daniel rolled his eyes, mortified.

"You're never letting that go, are you?" Peggy sighed. She sat back down at Daniel's side and picked up his hand again. She couldn't hide her playful smile.

"Nope," Jack said with a pop to the last syllable. Who would throw away a gift like that?

Behind Daniel's embarrassment was also a fondness that was easy to read when he glanced at Jack and nodded, as though knowing he was in for a hell of a ribbing later, and giving his permission. Not that he could have stopped it. The boys back in New York were going to love how this tale ended.

Jack stuck his hands into his pant pockets, touching the little pin lying there, not really knowing what to do with himself in this intimate seeming room. Daniel kept tracing little patterns on Peggy's skin, and although Jack didn't sense he was unwelcome, he felt like it might be a little tough for the guy to focus on other things, with his wife, thankfully alive and unharmed, reunited with him so recently. He applied himself to finding a means of escape, letting them get their fill of alone-time, and found one readily enough.

"I'd better call a nurse for your hands before we have to resort to field medicine." He gave a little wave and a nod to Daniel ― _don't thank me, buddy_ ― and moved towards the door.

"Hey," Daniel called. Jack thought about pretending he couldn't hear him, but Daniel gave a little cough, as though to remind Jack's conscience that he was the injured party here and Jack stopped in the doorway, sighing. "You're coming back, right?"

Jack looked back over his shoulder, his heart doing a tiny back-flip. "Sure am," he said, perhaps a little too earnestly in the face of the two pairs of brown eyes watching him hopefully.

Then Peggy's brow arched with humour, "It's just that Daniel and I worked hard to get you over to L.A. this time, I'd rather not have to go through that again." 

Jack shot her a dirty look and didn't dignify that with a response. But as he strode down the beige hallways of the hospital, his step lighter than it had been in ages, he had to duck his head and bite his lip so nobody would see the irrepressible smile stealing across his face.

 

**Fin.**


End file.
